25 Days of Family Fun - Day 2

Today our activity was to visit Santa. I was a little concerned that Jules would be afraid of him or something but he wasn't at all. He thought his beard was funny and aside from the normal 1 year old's don't like being held" deal he he fun. I thought these few pictures were really funny though... so I'm just sharing these tonight...

While I hung out with Santa and all the other kids getting pictures taken, Andrew took Julien to see the town tree lighting ceremony. He enjoyed all the singing and he even got a sticker from an elf. (He LOVES stickers) So it was a pretty fun night!

25 Days of Family Fun

December! And so it begins... We're going to try really hard to do some sort of holiday activity everyday until Christmas and I'm hoping to share them all.

I'll also be making a journal. Here is the page I created for it, in case you want to make one. I'm going to stick the pages in a 3 ring binder so we can look back and add to it every year.

(Just click on the page, right click to save and print on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper.)

I'll fill each page with a little bit about what we did, any especially funny things Julien did that day and probably what book(s) we read. 

Also, holiday coloring pages and activities:
(Because some days just don't have time for a big activity...)

coloring page (Love this one)
coloring page (Elves)
coloring page (Christmas story)
connect the dots
maze
madlibs
madlib

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December 1, 2011
Seems like everyone went a little crazy putting up their decorations super early this year. We waited until the day after Thanksgiving, like always, because I was afraid I would get burnt out on all of it before we even hit December... but it's up and we started our holiday season with the Christmas parade. One thing I love about our loft is that most parades go down our street and we can watch from our window.

Julien wasn't too interested in it but he did sit in the window and watch it on and off. There were a ton of people out this year. The sidewalks were crowded for at least a half hour before the parade started. I think Julien's favorites this year were the bands.

Sweet Little Thing

Yesterday one of my best friends welcomed a new little bundle of cuteness into the world. I had completely forgotten how tiny new babies are and oh my goodness, she is SO tiny! And precious- and perfect- and I just love her...

Party in J's Tummy! | Photography Update

This was such a fun shoot. This little cutie just turned 1 and he was definitely happy about exploring... dirt, bugs, leaves and CAKE!

Such a sweet little family... and growing! Congratulations! Can't wait to meet the little miss;) 

A Great Day

Yesterday was a great day. Woke up and took J to his Mamma's to play. I had a meeting at a bistro downtown to discuss hanging some photography in it. The meeting went awesome and I'm totally pumped about it. After I picked J up I decided that we were going to spend the day doing fun stuff while daddyman worked. He fell asleep as soon as we got in the car so I drove down to the river and worked on some things until he woke up. Then we walked down and watched the ducks. He LOVES ducks. Then we went and played on 2 playgrounds, went for a walk, went to the library, went on another walk, picked daddy up and went out to dinner. It was definitely the best day I've had in a long time.

I even got a latte and my favorite cookie (ever had a Toffee cookie from Panera? OMG) before we went home. (I know.. coffee before bed=dumb idea... but it was perfect and I drink so much caffeine that it doesn't phase me. haha should I admit that?)

Today... less great. Jules had his 15 month check up. He's perfect, but had to get 3 shots:( breaks my heart every time...

Mom stuff...

Julien is kind of a ridiculous kid. He's done everything super early. When he was really little and doing things really early it made me a little sad because I felt like I was missing out on having a little blob of baby that was really just a little blob of baby and perfectly content to just 'be'. Julien has never been like that.... and I've found that other people don't really understand it. Maybe it's just because they aren't around him 24/7 like I am but in his short little life I've put up with a lot of "just let him be a baby" and "he can't do that yet" type of comments. Well, yes, he can do that and I am not forcing him to do anything. I have always just gone off of his cues of when he was ready to do something. Some people act like I'm a bad mom because of the things Julien has done early, but what I can't understand is why anyone would think it would be good to keep their kids from doing things (like walking or using the potty) just because they're doing it earlier than average... I don't ever want to hold my kids back from accomplishing anything that they think they can do. And I hope that no matter what it is (as long as it's not dangerous or whatever... obviously...) I hope that I am open minded enough to help and support them.

All that ramble ranting aside, Jules (who is not bow-legged from walking at 9 months) discovered his boy parts a few weeks ago. Shortly after that he started doing the whole "hide when I poop in my diaper" thing so we got him a little potty. He's doing awesome! We don't pressure him to use it and he we are no where near potty trained... but if we think he needs to go and put him on the potty most of the time he goes in it. Then of course we sing silly potty songs and give him stickers and shower him with positive reinforcement. We're just hoping that by the time he really understands he'll want to use the potty and the actual potty training will be really easy. For the last week he's peed in the potty at least once a day (sometimes more) and I think he's awesome. :)

A couple things I don't want to forget... He's decided that it's hilarious to put his pacifier in your mouth if you're singing to him. And a few days ago he informed me "cow say's moooo" and it was the cutest thing ever...

Thrifty Upcycling

Lately I've been working on stuff for an upcoming craft show. A couple days ago I found these cute vintage change purses at a thrift store and thought I might embroider something on them but decided to sew some little flowers on them instead. Hoping they'll be super cute when they're done.